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Gender historical research today breaks up the borderlines between stereotypical notions of femininity and masculinity in relation to war and peace. It demonstrates the complexities and contradictions of the gendered divisions between home and front, civilian and military spheres, peacetime and wartime. Such perspectives on gender, war and peace have vitalized Nordic history research in the 21st century.

In this report of the 28th Congress of Nordic Historians in Joensuu, Finland, gender relations surrounding the organization of military power, warfare, and peace activism in the Nordic countries are discussed and problematized.

The chapters span from the Early Modern period to the Cold War. Posing new questions to old subject matters, the authors question previously takenfor- granted understandings of the gender relations informing women’s and men’s activities in relation to war and peace.

2. Ahlbäck, Anders

et al.

Sundevall, Fia

Stockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Economic History.

This dissertation adresses financialization – the increasing role of financial activities in the overall economy – in Sweden in 1900-2013. The focus is on the long run relationships between private debt, asset markets, inequality and financial crisis during this period. In line with established scholarship, the present study finds that changes in bank debt had a positive impact on the probability of financial crisis in Sweden. Functional income distribution between profits and wages was an underlying factor influencing the formation of bank debt levels through its impact on collateral in stock markets. Expenses related to the Swedish welfare state – the size of the public sector, government investment and housing construction – had a long run relationship with the wage share. The welfare state has been an effective counter-measure not just against a high profit share, but also against financialization. Moreover, the dissertation shows that the recent era of financialization in Swedish capitalism is not unique in kind. Rather, recent financialization is very similar to the macroeconomic situation during the early decades of the 20th Century. These findings are consistent with much of heterodox economic theory, in particular the Neo-Marxist approach.

This study demonstrates a long-run relationship between inequality and the bank debt to GDP ratio in Sweden in 1919–2012. The findings suggest that much of the impact of the top income share on the debt ratio comes from changes in the profit share. Earlier research claims that the rich, via the banks, have lent their savings to the poor as a substitute for wage gains, but this description seems ill-suited for Sweden. An alternative explanation is that banks consider profits to be an indicator of the safety of a loan. This is more in line with the study’s findings.

This investigation concerns the nexus between inequality, asset markets, and private debt, in the case of Sweden in 1900-2013. The evidence of the study suggests that financial wealth in stocks relative to GDP is an intermediary variable between the profit share and bank debt to GDP ratio. Though the study finds that there is a positive long run relationship between the profit share and the bank debt ratio in the case at hand, the inclusion of the stock market wealth ratio changes the sign of the profit share coefficient. Even so, there is also a positive long run relationship between the profit share and stock market wealth relative to GDP. This means that changes in the profit share may still have a positive impact on credit formation, though indirectly via the stock market. The study finds some evidence that collateral in the form of housing wealth is another determinant of the debt level.

6.

Ahnland, Lars

Stockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Economic History.

This study presents new time series data for private debt in Sweden in 1900–2013, including credit from banks, mortgage institutes and credit companies. The reconstruction of the data is a scientific task by itself, and is complicated by changed definitions, breaks in the series, and the need for occasional interpolation and cross-reference of sources. The obtained data reveal both qualitative and quantitative changes in the structure of private debt in Sweden during the period. One finding is a pattern where the era starting with the deregulation of the credit market in 1985 resembles the era preceding World War Two. Both periods experienced a high level of private debt-to-GDP ratio as well as severe financial crises. In a first application of the data, the hypothesis of rising private debt in the years before a financial crisis is explored through logit regression. The findings are in line with international research, and suggest that higher lending, especially from banks, might aggravate the risk of financial crisis.

This study explores the long run relationship between the wage share in the private sector and the extent of the Swedish welfare state in 1900-2013. It uses a novel approach where government intervention in the economy is broken down into three different aspects: Government consumption, government investment and residential construction. The construction of dwellings may seem questionable at first glance, since it to a large degree has been carried out by private interests. The fact that housing policy has been an important part of welfare policy through several channels motivates inclusion of the variable however. Government investment, mainly in infrastructure, and house construction as factors influencing the functional income distribution has been neglected in previous research. Through the use of single-equation cointegration technique, the study finds a positive and robust long run relationship between the private wage share and all three welfare variables.

8.

Aissi, Jonas

Stockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Economic History.

This paper examines how the outside world´s growing interest in the Arctic, which has emerged due to the opportunities implied by the Arctic‟s retreating sea ice, is affecting theArctic Ocean littoral states‟ relations with each other. It does so by utilizing the Copenhagen Schools‟ theory of securitization in a case study of Canadian and RussianArctic discourse between the years 2007 and 2012. The main findings are that bothRussia and Canada have securitized the Arctic and designated non-Arctic actors as anexistential threat. Through that process their willingness to cooperate with each other hasincreased.

9.

Anderson Rydell, Linus

Stockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Economic History.

The purpose of this research is to examine some historical aspects of Robert Putnam’s thesisabout voluntary associations and social capital. According to a micro perspective theory ofsocial capital the trust and reciprocity required and created by associations is important toexplain the disparity between institutional performance and socioeconomic development ofsocieties. The social patterns governing this therefore set a precedent for the future. Using themutual sickness benefit societies in Sweden as variable for voluntary associations around1884, the essay discusses the possible links between social capital, associations and long termeconomic development. The history and structure of the mutual benefit societies is analysed,and the regional differences in social capital and economic development 1958-1980 arecompared to the spread and extension of these benefit societies in 1884. The concludingchapter notes many difficulties in establishing empirical evidence of the discussed theories,pushes the role of some existing alternative explanations and makes a few suggestions onfurther historical research of the mutual benefit societies in the field of social capital.

The basic concept for my research is legal culture. Thus I do not confine my study to what has been labelled "historical criminology", but also include litigation in civil cases concerning economic conflicts. Though quantitative analysis is a necessary preliminary step, the focus of my interest lies in attitudes and values, mainly of the lower classes. The study of popular legal culture in Stockholm 1620-1720 is viewed in a comparative perspective with Chester and Bremen, two cities with legal systems belonging to the two main judicial traditions of Europe.

At the basis of any theory of culture and cultural change should be the assumption that there is a relation between culture and the power structure in the society where that culture is situated. But power is not only the determinant of culture, legal culture also includes the way that power is structured, and the ways it is exercised. In the field of legal culture the main change with respect to power in the period I have examined is what has been labelled the judicial revolution. This concept is related to the process of the state taking control over legal system and establishing a monopoly of violence in society.

Two main features may be discerned in the change of criminal pattern of Stockholm during the period 1620-1720. There is a distinct fall of the frequency of lethal violence and a rise of female criminality. In fact the early eighteenth century Stockholm is the only case known where more women than men are indicted and sentenced.

The comparative study focuses on how the legal tradition coexists with different political and economic systems and with differences in the legal culture: values and attitudes concerning the law, especially the code of honour, which from a Swedish point of view seems to be a crucial element in the popular legal culture, the education and backgrund of the judges and lawyers as well as the participation of laymen in the legal system, the equality before law; the role of different kinds of argumentation in the legal discourse and finally the existence of popular sanctions outside the official system.

The anglo-saxon system has maintained many arcaic and irrational elements, but on the other hand it has fostered a strong tradition of commersialization, pluralism and freedom to choose between different kind of courts, which may have aided the developement of a capitalistic economy. In Bremen the bürger-elite stayed in control of the political power, working for the autonomy of the city. But at the same time the city council gave place to a large number of judicially trained members and ranged itsef within the legal system of the empire.

12.

Andersson Raeder, Johanna

Stockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Economic History.

This dissertation studies the economic partnership between husband and wife amongst the Swedish nobility during the fifteenth century. Medieval marriages have been seen as an institution that first and foremost was economically and socially beneficial to men. The dissertation aims to broaden this view by emphasizing the marriages’ importance to women’s economic agency within the prevailing patriarchal structure of medieval society.Through arranged marriages noble families formed political and social networks in order to uphold and secure their positions. In scholarly literature the role of women is often reduced to being a link between men, the father and the husband, enabling property transfers between lineages. This dissertation describes how spouses circumvented the regulations of inheritance to benefit each other and their conjugal family. Furthermore, it discusses how these strategies were economically advantageous for married women whilst sustaining the patriarchal structure.

The legal status of women changed when they became widows, and it has often been pointed out that widows had opportunities and agency that neither unmarried nor married women had. The autonomy that women gained when they married was conditional on the guardianship of her husband. The widow had no guardian, thus being her own mistress. However, based on the high rate of remarriage amongst noble widows this dissertation argues that widow’s legal freedom to handle economic and juridical matters was considerably constrained within the existing gender system. Furthermore, it argues that remarried women’s freedom of action was larger than that of widows. Hence, marriage offered the possibility of forming an economic partnership with a man that represented their conjugal estate in economic transactions.

The political project of Gunnar Myrdal in Sweden’s post-war planning is characterised and its application in different areas of economic policy in the first post-war years is analysed. His participation in the government, ending in 1947 at the time of a currency crisis, is generally regarded as a failure. A failure for what and why? These questions are addressed in a way elucidating the margins of manoeuvre open to a small European country in the transition years between the Second World War and the Cold War era.

The characterisation of the project draws on Myrdal’s personal archive, the archives of Arbetarrörelsens Fredsråd and the official Post-war Economic Planning Commission. The three case studies on the post-war policies draw on the National Bank Archive (financial and currency policy), on the archives of Sweden’s Department of Foreign Affairs and the archives of Bank of England (trade policy) and on parliamentary records and Erlander’s personal archive (monetary policy).

It is argued that Myrdal’s views on economic policy differed radically from those of Ernst Wigforss, Sweden’s Minister of Finance. Criticising assumptions about an expansionary economic policy motivated by fears of economic depression, the study shows that Sweden’s post-war financial policy actually was restrictive in intent as well as to its effects. The study of Sweden’s trade policy shows its eastward trade these years to be grossly misrepresented, its currency support of Britain’s sterling to underestimated and the American intervention in our trade policy to be earlier than generally assumed. The final study on monetary policy demonstrates the predominance of domestic consumption concerns over considerations of trade balances.

The inconsistencies of the government’s economic policy these years are finally related to Myrdal’s partial failure to get his project accepted initially and to the growing exacerbation of domestic and international tensions.

15.

Appelqvist, Örjan

Stockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Economic History.

It is time to re-open the question of the early post-war division of Europe as a problem. In order to move beyond bipolarity and give a fuller representation of the tentative and open character of the immediate post-war years it is furthermore pertinent to include a broader array of actors. By highlighting the aspirations of Internationale Gruppe Demokratischer Sozialisten, a transnational network of social-democratic refugees from Germany and German-occupied countries in Sweden during the war and some of their endeavours after the war the articles explores the relative merits of realist and liberal readings of the outcomes. It is argued that historiography so far has underestimated the nationalistic, anti-German position of French and British socialists at the end of the war, and its wider implications as well as the importance of internal domestic dissensions within the UK and US administrations

Characterizes conflict and cooperation in the intertwined careers of Gunnar Myrdal and Dag Hammarskjöld as economists, actors in Swedish policy 1940-1947 and international civil servants, Myrdal being Executive Secretary of the UN ECE 1947-1957 and Hammarskjöld being General Secretary of the UN 1951-1961. In economics the difference between dynamic and neoclassical approaches are noted. It contrasts Myrdal’s very early formulation of growth oriented financial policy with the very lasting refusal of counter-cyclical policies of the Swedish government under the influence of Hammarskjöld. In regard to official US postwar policies their differences are highlighted from the pre-cold war period as well as from the early fifties, Myrdal defending a ‘universalist’ position trying to defend the ECE against power policy intrusion whereas Hammarskjöld wanted to ‘proceed with caution’ in regard to what he considered to be ‘a friendly government’.

Their differences are traced to personal backgrounds while at the same time expressing principal dilemmas facing civil servants in international organisations in a political climate of strong tensions between national interests.

33.

Appelqvist, Örjan

Stockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Economic History.

Which role played the demographic argument in the advent of the Swedish Welfare State ? The article studies the main thesis of the book Kris i befolkningsfragan (1934) by Alva and Gunnar Myrdal, which prepare the discursive ground of demography in Sweden. Compromising the predominance of an hygienism with biologist leanings and introducing a discussion about family policy within Swedish social democracy, its influence on reforms was limited before the war. The advent of Welfare State in the middle of the 1950s is explained rather by socio-economic factors than by demographic arguments. However, after 1970, the intense demographic debate launched by the Myrdal's in the 1930s with their ''practical radicalism"" underlied the important family policy reforms: parental leaves, spread of the public pre-school system, etc.

36.

Aradszky, Jennie

Stockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Economic History.

In this article, the Swedish market for magazines considered obscene (by authorities, distributors, retailers, etc.) is analyzed, with a focus on the first half of the twentieth century. Obscene content was combatted with several recurrent strategies by popular movements, the joint daily press, distributors and retailers, in addition to Freedom of the Press cases. However, once the consensus about the problem of pornography had been broken, during which time pornographers found ways to circumvent these strategies, a pornographic market was able to develop. The magazines that were considered obscene had different sub-genres: humorous and satirical (in the 1910s and 1920s), sex education (in the 1930s), nudism (1930s onwards) and pin-up (1940s onwards). All of the magazines in various ways distanced themselves from pornographic or sexual commercialism, but were nonetheless treated as part of it. Later, Sweden became one of the ‘forerunners’ in developing a market for pornography. This article traces the prehistory of this development and elaborates on the circumstances that prevented the market from developing earlier on. The argument is made that the restrictions were more connected to corporatist-related regulations concerning retail and distribution than to legal actions.

This article focuses on women’s business positions in Swedish porn publishing from the 1950s to the 1970s, i.e. when pornography was legalized and when sexually explicit magazines made their commercial breakthrough. The research draws on statistical information on women’s entrepreneurial roles in the overall publishing industry, which is then compared with women’s agency in porn publishing. According to the findings, women seem to have had a slightly more central role in pornography than within the mainstream publishing industry. The analysis is also expanded with details about a few key female pornography entrepreneurs, tracing their publications and business strategies connected to the Freedom of the Press legislation. It is argued that women’s presence in pornographic print and in the overall publishing industry were in fact similar, with a high ratio of family businesses. Women’s entrepreneurship in pornography thus followed a more general historical pattern whereby women engaged in small-scale business with relatively low barriers to entry.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze the press’ self-advertising to the advertisers in order to trace early divisions into market segments primarily based on gender and social class.

Design/methodology/approach – Both qualitative and quantitative analysis are made in order to follow the changes of highlighted consumer groups in the ads. Also a qualitative intersectional analysis is made in order to se how notions of class and gender intersected.

Research limitation/implications – This paper takes an overall perspective of market segmentation in relation to the press and tells less about different market segmentation strategies from single businesses point of view. The sectioning of the press is stressed as a prerequisite for market segmentation and the economic history of mass media is lifted as essential for understanding the latter. Therefore the gendering and classing of market segments were also based on how common interests were interpreted by political movements and their press forums. For surviving in the long run, however, the political press needed to commercialize the political identities in order to attract advertisers and survive economically.

44.

Arnberg, Klara

Stockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Economic History.

In this article, the process leading to decriminalization of pornography in Sweden in 1971 is analyzed. The interplay between the structural institutional level and company behavior is stressed, with an emphasis on business strategies. The article shows that the division between hard-core and soft-core pornographic magazines in Sweden was quite different than the development in the United Kingdom and the United States. It also shows how the business strategies used by hard-core pornographers challenged the obscenity legislation and regulation of national distribution, making them obsolete. Even though there was fierce competition between the pornography companies, producers formed joint alternative distribution channels crucial to the survival of the industry.

This article analyzes a content-based market position that developed during the mid-1960s, situated in-between the pornographic and the accepted. By studying Swedish men’s magazines and sex films from the time period, the argument is made that these media products profited from both the advantages of pornography, i.e., more or less sexual explicit images, and the advantages of the accepted, i.e., common distribution channels, the possibility of having regular advertising and placards and being sold in ordinary kiosks (for magazines) and shown at ordinary cinemas (for films). For some years, this balancing act between the accepted and the pornographic was maintained, and the genre became enormously popular. From the mid-1970s onward, however, the division between pornography and accepted media became more clear-cut. The critique against pornography and the in-between media products intensified, and the uncertainty about pornography’s future role after the legalization in 1971 was followed by new ways of separating the pornographic from the accepted. While there were some differences between the two media formats, such as their degree of internationalization and the importance of advertising, they shared much in terms of content formulas and used the same female actors and models. It is argued that both formal regulations and the informal norms of gender and sexuality at the time and their change throughout the 1970s are key for understanding the development and the disappearance of the in-between genre.

Swedish cinema became recognized for daring representations of sexuality with such films as One Summer of Happiness (1951), The Silence (1963), I am Curious (Yellow) (1967) and a wave of sex films in the late 1960s and 1970s. The association between Swedish film and sexuality shows up frequently in popular culture-from Taxi Driver to Mad Men, references to dirty Swedish movies abound. Yet the connection has attracted little critical attention. In this collection of new essays, Swedish and American scholars go beyond popular misconceptions to explore the origins, influences and reception of sexuality in Swedish cinema during the "sexual revolution" on both sides of the Atlantic. A broad range of topics are covered, from analyses of key films, to a behind-the-scenes study of the Swedish Film Institute, which played a significant role in opposing Swedish film censorship.

49.

Arnberg, Klara

et al.

Stockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Economic History.

Pia, LaskarSundevall, FiaStockholm University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Economic History.